Analysis

Even before the international decision on the gradual lifting of sanctions against Iran, the Islamic Republic has started to actively develop its international political and economic relations, including with Armenia.

The Investigative Committee of Armenia has received the materials of the case thus far examined by the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation in relation to the January massacre of an Armenian family in Gyumri blamed on a Russian soldier.

At the level of different diplomats the United States has made it clear that it will not allow the escalation of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. For this purpose, American diplomats have engaged in intensive consultations with Russia.

While Iran and the six major powers appeared to be close to reaching a historic agreement on Tehran’s nuclear program, Armenian politicians and political analysts were actively discussing the prospects of the lifting of Western sanctions from the neighboring country.

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan has reiterated Yerevan’s readiness to engage in dialogue and cooperation in different formats as he attended on July 9 the summits of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) in Ufa, the capital of the Russian Republic of Bashkortostan.

While protests against electricity price hikes still continue in Yerevan, their current magnitude is nowhere near the one that was present some two weeks ago when rallies in the capital’s Baghramyan Avenue gathered up to 10,000 people.

Amid continuing street protests against rising electricity tariffs in Yerevan, the fate of the Armenian power grid remains a key issue both in the sphere of Armenia’s internal political developments as well as on the agenda of Armenian-Russian relations. The Electric Networks of Armenia, the current operator of the grid, is owned by the Russian company, Inter RAO, but periodically information appears in the press to suggest that there are intentions to sell it.

While the current protests in Yerevan are dubbed “Electric”, they are more like a “silent revolution”. Demonstrators in Baghramyan Avenue are not setting any political demands, besides the “social demand” of revoking the decision on the electricity price hike, they are silent, they spend the day singing and dancing and gather in the evenings for rallies.

This week the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted a resolution on the human rights situation in Azerbaijan, which, in fact, qualifies the regime in this country as anti-democratic and authoritarian. In Baku they took the resolution as a manifestation of double standards, and officials of the Presidential Administration and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan even said that it is time to consider the expediency of Azerbaijan’s continued membership in the Council of Europe.

The third day of actions of protest in Yerevan demanding the cancellation of the decision to raise electricity tariffs began with protesters still camped in a central Yerevan street, determined to continue their struggle till a corresponding decision by the authorities.

Last week the Armenian government submitted to parliament draft amendments to the law on the state debt. The essence of the law is that the government suggests replacing the notion “state debt” by “government debt.”

Many experts do not agree that the planned referendum in the Crimea (Ukraine) on its accession to Russia and Moscow’s recognition of its results may become a precedent for other unresolved conflicts.

Editor-in-chief of the Karabakh-based political magazine “Analyticon” Gegham Baghdasaryan, for example, believes that every crisis is unique and attempts to measure conflicts by the same stick could prove futile.

Armenia’s recent military acquisitions and announced modernization of some of its defense capabilities may fit the general context of a big war prospect in the Greater Middle East that is deemed as real as ever after this week’s direct involvement of Israel in the escalating conflict in Syria.

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